CNN Talks About Online Game
Romp:
One problem with tapping into both the female market and the mass market I think is that the MMORPG genre has developed from the roleplaying genre in general, and from Dungeons and Dragons and such.
But the average person, esp women, never played Dungeons and Dragons, they dont really think Elves and dragons are all that cool. Sure there have been some MMOGS that have not come from the sci fi or RPG genres but not many. TSO didnt do very well but I think it will be a MMOG that doesnt involve elves, classes, levels or even combat that will probably break into the 'mass market'.
eldaec:
Quote from: pants
There are a lot of bored stay-at-home housewives that watch Day of our Lives or whatever, and are gradually gaining access to PCs and the internet. Whoever can crack that market and produce EverSoap or whatever, is going to make a whole damn wardrobe out of money, not just a hat.
That's all well and good, but you need to design a game for these people first. Which is hard. It's difficult enough to convince my mother to play a board game at christmas; simple fact is that not everyone enjoys interactive competitive entertainment. I'm not convinced we can assume it's a universal truth that there is a game for everyone, if only we put enough flowers in it.
The real relatively-untapped-but-also-reasonably-easily-available market in MMOGs is gamers who do not wish to spend over $1000 on a gaming rig. These people are otherwise known as console users.
1) Write massively multiplayer Zelda.
2) Solve the chat problem (probably with a smart implementation of voice chat).
3) Profit!
Forget wardrobes. This is the way to houses constructed entirely out of money.
Venkman:
Quote
That's all well and good, but you need to design a game for these people first. Which is hard
No, it's not. And two years ago, The Sims, and expansions, became the top selling PC game of all time (finally dethroning Myst).
The fact that the online version was a bust hasn't to do with the license as much as the game play did not target the same demographic as the solo one.
Quote from: Romp
One problem with tapping into both the female market and the mass market I think is that the MMORPG genre has developed from the roleplaying genre in general, and from Dungeons and Dragons and such.
That's it, in a nutshell (in my opinion, though that should be assumed :) ). Games like CoH, PS and Eve try to break outside of the core D&D derivatives. While they don't specifically target females, they at least target the not 18 to 24 male crowd. It's a start.
As to the topic at hand, there is also another huge as-yet untapped market: the tween online gamer. This will be the next big thing, given their spending power. I argue this will be bigger than older females alone because particularly the bored housewife mentioned above are responsible with their money and don't "waste" it on "frilly" things "like games".
HaemishM:
Quote from: SirBruce
If you don't think there's a large untapped female market, you are either stupid or you don't understand the true market.
Holy Fuck, I actually agree with Bruce.
See, game designers who know their shit and want to make money design games for a certain audience. Marketers then target their advertising efforts at that market. To say that no one designs or should design a game with the female gamer in mind is fucking retarded.
EDIT: I believe I read somewhere (and no I don't have a link on it) that there are a larger percentage of female gamers in MMOG's than in non-MMOG games of the single-player variety. I think the communal/social aspect is the defining reason for that. Mass generalization ahead: Females tend to be more socially-oriented gamers, whereas males tend to be more achiever-oriented.
Paelos:
I agree with Haemish on my limited experience in games, I've seen more of a trend of the female players, and not those being played by males, being more oriented towards social gains rather than other pursuits. In DAOC we have numerous females in my guild, and they usually gravitate to helping people out to level, hanging out doing something in groups, and talking to people in chat rather than soloing or catassing artifacts like most of their male counterparts. While small, this experience played over into SWG with more of the female players I ran into were hanging out in social places, talking, crafting, and generally doing the more sandboxy stuff rather than catassing jedi.
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